Damage Done

LETTERS FROM READERS

April 13, 1998

I HAVE no idea what will happen to our president now that the Paula Jones lawsuit has been dismissed. Nor do I purport to know how history will judge him years from now. I suspect that it will show that, as with previous presidents, his private affairs will have had little to do with his official activities.

I doubt history will be as kind to Kenneth Starr. Certainly, his investigation has been an eye-popping lesson in law for me. Before this, I did not know it was legal for our government to use hidden tape recorders to spy on us. I did not know it was legal to force parents to testify against their children. I did not know it was legal to force a news reporter to reveal his conversations with other reporters (with astonishingly little outcry from the news media - a dismaying outlook indeed for a free press). I did not know it was legal to subpoena the records of someone's bookstore purchases. You can be assured that, from now on, all my purchases will be in cash!

I think that the damage that has been done to our democratic institutions by this investigation dwarfs any damage done by the president's alleged affairs. I fear that it will have far-reaching implications. All of this done by a party who professes to stand for individual rights and freedoms? Barbara Berry, ORLANDO